According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease remains America’s number one killer. The disease continues to devastate as it takes the lives of hundreds of thousands each year. Now, a new study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control is sending a loud wake-up call to Americans.

According to the American Heart Association, cardiovascular disease remains America’s number one killer. Heart disease continues to devastate as it takes the lives of hundreds of thousands each year. Now, a new study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control is sending a loud wake-up call to Americans.

There are several major risk factors that put an individual at risk for a heart attack or stroke. These are things like high cholesterol, diabetes, and smoking. And while you’d think that with all the craze over carbs and exercise lately, we’d be in better shape than we were ten years ago. But that’s simply not the case.

The popcorn is popped, the game is on the tube, and Rico Watson melts into his couch as he does every night equipped with remote in hand. “Unfortunately, at the age of 40, I’ve become a couch potato,” says Rico. It’s a far cry from Rico’s teenage days when he was a high school track star. Today, he battles high cholesterol and that’s not helped by the fact that he is a smoker. “If I do a little activity, I feel myself really working to breathe.”

Like many Americans, in fact, a surprisingly high number, Rico is gambling with his health by not paying attention to the things that could put him at risk for a heart attack. The CDC just released a 10 year study which revealed in this age of health and fitness, we’re heading in the wrong direction. The research found among Americans, a staggering increase in high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity - all potent risk factors that prime us for cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Richard Goldweit, an interventional cardiologist, with Englewood Medical Center in New Jersey, says, “There’s no question that heart disease is an epidemic.” He believes that mixed messages about diet, sedentary lifestyle and lack of awareness are all contributing culprits. “More and more a larger percentage of people are overweight, people do less and eat more. People, in New York and elsewhere, don’t see their doctors or healthcare providers as often as they should,” says Dr. Goldweit.

And Rico definitely pleads guilty, avoiding going to the doctor at all costs.“If I get sick then I’ll go to the doctor, without being sick I feel like I don’t need to go,” says Rico.
But medical experts warn that in order to stop the heart disease epidemic in its tracks, prevention is crucial.
Dr. Goldweit believes, “It’s incumbent upon us to be more aggressive in screening, educating, developing preventive strategies so that women and men can be more effectively taken care of.”

As for Rico, while he’s not abandoning his cigarettes just yet, he is putting down the remote and easing into an exercise regimen. “The plan is to lose this gut.”

For more information on heart health, click here
http://www.healthnewsconnect.com/page0003.html
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=120000

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